So I should update, it's been a little while. As usual I'm on the verge of getting a little carried away.

To address the Opportunist / Exchange places conversation: I feel that Exchange Places is a niche skill on the descent, more likely to be picked up out of necessity than strategy, whereas Opportunist is very generally useful for melee characters. As something that's most useful in an emergency, it benefits more from being a little cheaper. Opportunist requiring a little more Stealth investment hopefully will make it less tempting compared to the Melee tree skills for characters with no real Stealth investment.

Moving onto the new developments:
- The first entry to 50' now has places where the rock has fallen in and sunlight streams through from above. I guess the long siege of Angband did some damage. Creatures vulnerable to light and undead won't enter sunlight, and there are the expected light bonuses when fighting from it.
- New enemy at 50' with a new attack also shared by Mewlips (who've lost their Blind) - some other enemies have been weakened a little to reduce early game unfairness
- Curved swords start equipped (I considered stripping elves back to shortsword and bow with a few arrows, dwarves throwing axes and helm, humans spear and cloak, but this definitely increases elf difficulty again)
- Song of Staying improved as earlier discussed - I think Majesty is perhaps most impacted by this, but given the issues with fear builds tend to be related to horrors and things that can't be made to flee I'm not sure the Majesty boost will greatly imbalance it
- Song of Overwhelming improved - now it stuns surrounding enemies without you needing to hit them
- Quarterstaff egos improved, made more common, cheaper to craft
- Bugfixes - Opportunist, archers firing when blocked from moving when other reasons should prevent them from doing so, various others.

Things I'm looking at doing:
- Song of Thresholds never really found its place. I'm contemplating a couple of possible replacements:
-- Prelude - a song that allows you after a short period of singing to switch to any other existing song, whether you have the skill or not. Probably Overwhelming and Mastery would move down a slot and it would move up to Mastery's place.
-- Song of Changing - a song that would allow you to assume different shapes; currently I'm thinking of orc, wolfhound and bear. This would be potentially a nightmare to debug, tempting and cool though it sounds, so I may hold off for my own sanity, though I've intricate detail planned in my head (wolfhounds get Leaping, Sprinting and Wolfs'-Bane, bears Charge, Crowd Fighting and Knockback; orcs are essentially a stealth option that lets you continue to use your inventory; the shapes are very strong early game and provide utility but not combat prowess late game).

- I'm considering changing Archery. Flaming Arrows and Rapid Fire allow very substantial damage output (while eating up your arrows), but Archery is tediously slow to do damage in the early game. Having reduced the U-shape of Smithing, I have a few skills in mind to try to balance the Archery tree so it's easier at the start and less overwhelming by the end. Thoughts from keen archers are welcome.

For Prelude, have you considered letting it give you a boost to your song skill that gradually decays once you switch away from it?

Either way, I'd be a little worried about this meaning that people spend some time hiding around a corner singing themselves up, before they switch to the song they really want.

Perhaps another possibility would be some kind of dance or self-accompaniment ability. Like, say, you can toggle half movement speed (because you're moving to the rhythm of your song) in exchange for increased skill / longer-lasting voice. Or you can clash your weapon on your shield, etc.

For Prelude, have you considered letting it give you a boost to your song skill that gradually decays once you switch away from it?

Either way, I'd be a little worried about this meaning that people spend some time hiding around a corner singing themselves up, before they switch to the song they really want.

I was actually thinking of a fairly short delay e.g. the immediate next turn you have access to Elbereth and Challenge, the turn after Silence and Freedom, then Trees and Delvings, then Staying and Lorien, then Overwhelming and Mastery. Perhaps faster than that. It should be just enough delay to be very slightly worse than having the song, and drain a little bit of Voice off at the beginning.

Getting players to take the top end of the Song tree is hard. Sharpness was taken because getting Sils was difficult without it. Anything that lives up there has to be very strong, though preferably not in a way that combos too nicely for Lorien sneakers or melts Morgoth. This might be too good, though at least that would hopefully inspire somebody to try it.